


12 Days Of Christmas

by Linane



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Additional tags will be listed in the notes for each chapter, Ficlets, Fluff, IDK these are so varied, M/M, Porn, emotional h/c, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21792550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane
Summary: A series of ficlets written for the12 Days of Christmas 2019and12 Days of Christmas 2020events organised byGatheringFiKi.
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 68
Collections: GatheringFiKi - 12 Days OF Christmas 2019, GatheringFiKi - 12 Days Of Christmas 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 additional tags: Porn, Kinks, Licking, Temperature Play, Knife Play, Brief Graphic Descriptons of Violence.
> 
> Think Peaky Blinders AU...

Kili rocked up when Fili had barely started on his whiskey. He always knew, somehow.

Fili looked up. It was a mistake of course, but he was prone to making mistakes when it came to Kili.

Dark, cat-like eyes. Eyelashes like coal. Broad, kissable mouth framed by the permanent 5 o’clock. Warm lips that drew you in.

Perfect darkness lit up by a brilliant fire.

And Fili – like a moth to a flame –

The thing was though: Kili needed him. Longed for him. Required him to exist, to go on, to give him what he wanted.

And Kili wanted.

Fili pushed up and kissed him, in place of a more customary hello. They never needed words.

Kili smiled, dark eyes closed, arms wrapped around Fili’s neck, long fingers moved into his hair.

Kili gave.

Fili took and relinquished his whiskey in favour of a far more potent and dangerous drug. It was the only thing that was better, the only thing that kept him from drowning in his liquor, kept him standing when others stumbled and misjudged.

These days Fili took his fix intravenously, pushed under his skin and settled inside his flesh.

But that would come later.

If Kili was here, it meant he had received what amounted to a personal, hand-written invitation.

Fili had ordered the lights to be strung up and down their courtyard, right above the shop front and the offices. He personally helped haul the damn Christmas trees, lined them up against the ugly, grey wall as neatly as he could and even remembered to stick them into buckets. (He hadn’t gotten round to actually decorating them yet, but it was the gesture that counted). And for the past three days running, he’d been roasting chestnuts in the evenings, over open fire, the same way their Ma used to when they were little.

Kili loved Christmas: the candles, the presents, the anticipation. Even now, when it was just the two of them plus a family more adopted than blood.

Fingers followed his hair line, toyed with blond strands, which Fili kept long because Kili liked it that way, finally brushed over the bruises and cuts.

Fili winced, felt grateful that the worst of it had faded by now.

“Who?”

“The Italians.”

“Mhm.”

Somehow, with that single noise, Fili felt chastised; he felt ashamed of himself.

Kili moved on to scratch blunt fingernails through his beard. Fili’s jaw ached too, but he didn’t say anything.

Instead, he leaned in for another kiss, knew that Kili would taste the whiskey on his tongue, would disapprove of it, would try to kiss his own flavour into Fili.

Kili did.

Fili let him for a while and then he pushed, reclaimed the kiss, slipped his own fingers into the dark, silky curls and held tight.

His brother searched his eyes for a moment and moved – to the bedroom, to cufflinks removed, to crisp shirts pushed aside, to warm skin and a thick cover of coarse hair.

Fili grabbed his tumbler and followed; he _was_ prone to making mistakes.

They lived very different lives these days, but anyone who doubted they were completely and utterly _together_ was a fool.

Kili was a pianist. His hands were always steady and strong, for as long as Fili remembered. Music was his true passion and he kept stubbornly choosing it over family, loyalty and duty, until finally they let him go.

Which wasn’t to say that Kili was an ignorant happy-go-lucky – one simply couldn’t be a Durin and survive without keeping their wits about them. So instead Kili chose to avoid conflict altogether, keeping a low profile, hiding his own intelligence, frequently disappearing in plain sight, and generally getting himself out of harm’s way in any number of mysterious ways. He could read people like no one else Fili knew.

Not that it stopped him assigning two of his best men to guard his brother at all times.

“I don’t _need_ them!” Kili hissed in his face.

“I know you don’t,” Fili replied. “But I do.”

Kili looked him in the eye for a long moment and then let it go, allowing Nori and Bofur to become his invisible shadows.

The thing was: Fili needed _him_.

Fili was running the family venture. Every day he descended deeper and deeper into the shitstorm that was fight for territory, for business, for power. It was perhaps a position Fili was ill-suited for: he preferred knives to bullets and only killed when he absolutely had to. That was hardly conducive to expanding the family’s criminal empire and so their operations in the city continued steadily, but hardly aggressively.

It also meant that sometimes Fili got hurt.

This in turn meant that sometimes Kili came over to put him back together.

And sometimes, just sometimes, Kili brought his own pieces and placed them into Fili’s hands.

In the bedroom Fili did his worst: he loved Kili.

He kissed, he licked, he pushed him down and bent him over the dresser. (Kili liked being bent over things). Then he licked some more, eliciting high keens, as if Kili was dying, and it scared him and excited him all at the same time. He slipped his fingers where they absolutely shouldn’t have been, dragged it out, slowly stretching to claim as his own.

He then slipped his cock, all the way in, where it shouldn’t have been either. And he fucked Kili, hard and proper: not like he’d fuck a whore, not like he’d fuck a brother. He fucked him like he’d fuck the only lover he was ever going to have.

And Kili took it. Took it, loved it, revelled in it, finally challenged and matched.

When Kili had the worst of his hunger pounded out of him, they moved onto the bed: for closeness, for comfort, for more.

Fili sprawled (he liked sprawling), Kili climbed after him, settled on top of his thighs, where he could kiss more and take stock of Fili’s body.

“Not the – _ah, fuck!_ \- Not the ribs.” He almost lifted clear off the bed when Kili accidentally rested his weight on the wrong spot.

Kili prescribed and administered a series of kisses like fluttering of butterfly wings.

“Or there –“ He hissed, when Kili discovered the dark patches low on his belly, where the boots landed when he curled up to protect his groin.

Kili looked him in the eye. Fili let him search his soul.

Kili didn’t comment, but he _did_ learn, his fingers threading the paper-thin boundary between pleasure and pain when they delivered their strokes, his hips careful when he slipped Fili’s length inside himself again and started slowly rocking to feel it drag through him.

The injuries were nothing new, after all.

Once, just once, Thorin had tried to separate them. That was how Fili ended up in Manchester in the first place, sent to ‘take over the business there’.

Uncle Thorin thought that that was going to be that; but then he never understood what he was dealing with.

Fili and his party had been targeted of course, almost from the moment they stepped out of the fucking car.

Nobody expected Kili to follow; to simply turn around, get in the car and drive himself. They always underestimated him.

He appeared some seven hours later, by which point Fili was fighting for his life, pinned down, literally with a knife at his neck.

It was the only time Fili had seen his brother kill at close quarters.

A hand reached out of the darkness, yanked his attacker’s head back by the hair, while another drew a blade, deep, ear to ear, right across his throat.

Blood covered everything.

Blue eyes caught brown, before Kili turned, pulled a gun out and shot four moving targets dead, without ever grazing any of their own. He killed seven men that day to get to Fili, unwittingly changing the balance of power in the city.

It was also the only time Fili saw his hands tremble.

(He carefully pried the gun out of Kili’s fingers, pulled him close and held on as Kili shook. Didn’t even think to question when later that night, for the first time, Kili slowly stripped him of his clothes, touched him, took him inside his body.)

Kili stayed in Manchester, found a new job, having quit his previous one rather abruptly, alongside with his family.

They both stopped pretending.

The thing was: they needed _each other_.

“Still with me, brother?”

“Yeah. I’m right here.”

More kisses, slow and somehow whimsical, offering peace and toying with his self-control, all at once.

The idea to use the half-melted lump of ice from the long-forgotten whiskey glass was as brilliant as it was unexpected, when it came to Fili. And since he never backed down from a challenge before...

“Lift up.”

Kili arched an eyebrow but obeyed. He then allowed Fili to watch his face as he slowly, oh so slowly slipped the ice deep inside him and pushed up with the heel of his hand to keep it there.

It rather sped things up.

Kili gasped, panted, grabbed, shivered –

Kept shivering, couldn’t seem to stop.

Fili stared, mesmerized.

“Fili… Fee, I n-need –“

Fili forced him, slowly, onto his cock. The shivers turned into full-bodied shaking and Fili swore at the cold, the heat, the wetness, the renewed tightness.

Kili moved.

Fili grit his teeth, clawed at the bedding and held, as if he could choke the life out of it. He denied himself the pleasure of touching, because if he did, he’d leave bruises, and ones that would hurt.

“Fili -!”

“Mhhhhn.”

Kili fucked himself like a man possessed, muscles shifting, chest heaving, his hand working his cock in a blur.

He came hard and fast, all across Fili’s chest, and for a moment Fili thought that that was his own problem, until he surprised himself with an orgasm of his own, savage and wrenched out of him, as he buried in to the hilt.

Fili stared.

Kili panted. And shivered. And laughed, smug at first, simply unabashed within seconds.

“Shut up, wanker,” Fili grumbled.

Kili only laughed harder, so Fili pulled at him, wrapped his arms around the shaking shoulders and kissed the top of his crazy head.

He couldn’t tell when all this started. Not the sex; he knew that one, but the _other thing_. The one that made his heart vulnerable.

It had been there for as long as he could remember, right from the gap-toothed grins and life on the road.

“Run away with me,” Kili asked him once, when they were teenagers, shortly after Fili killed his first man.

Fili looked him in the eye. “This is who I am,” he replied.

 _They would never let both of us go,_ he thought.

A lick, right from his sternum, up the whole length of his neck, ending in a sharp nip to his ear.

Fili twitched. (His ears were sensitive and Kili knew it).

“Well?” his brother prompted. Unless he was in a very particular mood, Kili was rarely satisfied being the only one taking it up the ass.

Not that Fili disagreed – there was a reason he’d baited Kili into coming in the first place.

Besides, he needed his fix.

He assumed the position: on all fours, legs spread wide open. Fili knew what he wanted.

Kili, as per the usual, ignored him, busying himself instead with distributing kisses all over his back, discovering more bruises over his kidneys.

It went on for minutes or perhaps hours, punctuated with quiet huffs of displeasure and slick little sounds of fingers moving in and out of him, until Fili found himself in a meditative state, with Kili carefully controlling the dosage of what he was allowed to feel.

When he finally slipped in, Fili almost didn’t notice, too lost in the brilliant silence of his mind. He let himself ride out the hard, perfectly rhythmic thrusts, settled into the thick pulses of pleasure transported with blood to every corner of his body.

“It’s not enough today, is it?” Kili whispered.

Fili shook his head, couldn’t bring himself to actually ask.

The knife, retrieved from Fili’s own discarded sock, never once cut him, never even grazed his skin to leave the most shallow of cuts. If it did, Fili would have probably come on the spot.

(Kili knew his way around a blade, grew up in a family where such knowledge was taught before the alphabet.)

Instead it traced, time and time again, over Fili’s most intimate parts: exposed arteries, tight muscles where it would really hurt. Slowly, with surgical precision tailored to just how sharp Fili liked keeping his knives, Kili picked him apart.

Fili came on a sharp cry; he never _could_ keep quiet when Kili did this to him.

Exhausted and basking, he wouldn’t speak for some time after, but he _would_ let himself be held.

Around three in the morning Fili roasted his fourth batch of chestnuts, using the bedroom’s fireplace and a frying pan fetched from the kitchen stark naked. Kili demanded to eat them hot, but refused to leave the bed to do so.

Around eleven, Fili woke up and found curious little raised lines all over his body, as if he’d been scraped with the end of a wire.

That of course made him horny.

But by then Kili was gone.

Fili fell back into the rumpled pillows and wallowed for a while in his own annoyance.

And then he pulled on a pair of trousers and yesterday’s shirt and padded downstairs, where he ordered a consignment of baubles and tinsel for the bloody forest he was growing in front of his shop.


	2. Chapter 2

Fili found the freeloader in the morning.

He was fetching the firewood from the loft when he discovered the man curled up on the floor, head pillowed on top of his backpack, his winter coat doubling up as a cover.

How the guy had made it into the house, _past Fili_ , and into the loft, he had no idea. _Nobody_ sneaked up on Fili.

He was used to people trying to trespass on his _land_ , but for someone to break into his _home_ , the epicentre of the entire operation – that was ballsy. It never even occurred to Fili to set up alarms around his own fence.

He carefully edged around the guy and went about picking the logs he wanted.

If the stranger managed to find his way in, perhaps he’d also manage to find his way out. Or better yet, perhaps he’d turn out to be a figment of Fili’s imagination - come to think of it, it had been some time since he’d spoken to another human being.

Annoyingly, the freeloader stubbornly remained in his spot.

Fili huffed and prodded him with the tip of his boot.

“Mmnnn.”

Another prod.

“’S it breakfast time?” came a mumbled question.

“No.” It was nearing ten. Fili had his breakfast hours ago.

The man yawned, stretched and peered up blearily at Fili.

Fili peered right back.

“… Lunch?”

“Get out of my house,” Fili cut to the chase before they could get through any other meal times.

“Your _house_?! This isn’t the hostel?” The guy sat up.

Fili pointed behind himself. “Three miles up that way.”

“Oh. No wonder the service last night was terrible.”

Fili twitched.

The stranger’s mind caught up with his mouth. “I mean –“

“Out.”

“Right!” The freeloader scrambled to his feet and set about collecting his scattered belongings.

Fili waited patiently until the guy was climbing down the ladder ( _Why the loft?! How did he even find the ladder in the first place?!_ ) before throwing a suspicious glance around the cluttered space.

He hoped to hell this was the only pixie he had acquired.

Downstairs the pixie theory gained credibility, when the two of them discovered that the gentle snowfall of the morning had turned into a vicious blizzard. It figured the little shit could control the weather.

“It’s alright! I have a poncho! Just let me –“ the guy started digging through his backpack.

Fili eyed him. He didn’t look like someone who could have possibly made it this far North. No hiking or weather-proof gear, just a pair of jeans that clung to his legs like second skin, a battered pair of sports shoes, a fur-lined coat and a stretched scarf which, Fili was willing to bet, he’d knitted himself.

Fili sighed and headed for the kettle. “You can stay,” he informed the leprechaun, pulling out a mug. “Until _this_ blows over.”

The smile that lit up the previously morose expression did something to Fili’s insides. It was unnerving and unnecessary.

“Thank you so much! I’m Kili, by the way!” the freeloader offered.

At least if Fili had to prosecute, he now had the first name.

* * *

By noon Fili decided that he’d been cursed. There must have been something in the lore about pixies that said: ‘so many years of misfortune, if you invite them to stay at your home.’

The blizzard only intensified.

Kili, much like the blizzard, intensified too.

 _No more coffee for you_ , Fili thought, watching the guy poke at the perfectly stocked fire inside the wood burner, then move to take in the frankly very limited view of the lake outside, and then again to inspect the décor of Fili’s home.

“Ooooh, are you with the mountain rescue?!” Kili wanted to know, picking Fili’s ancient backpack in the corner and inspecting it with awe.

“No; my dad was,” Fili replied without looking up from the book he was trying to read. There was no need to encourage him by offering him attention.

A nod, but no further questions about his dad. Good. Perhaps the pixie could be trained.

The freeloader meanwhile was staring at Fili’s simple acoustic guitar. He reached for it, but stopped just short of touching.

Fili twitched, and realised that despite his expressed wishes, his eyes were following the stranger all around the room.

“Do you play?”

“Sometimes.”

“Would you play for me?”

“No.”

That got Fili a delighted smile, as if the pixie was _expecting_ that response.

Definitely trainable. Now, how to make him sit?

“So you’re not a responder and you’re not a musician. What do you do all the way out here then?” came another, undeterred question.

Fili blinked. “I live here?”

“No, I know _that_. I meant: for a job.”

 _Mostly I try to get rid of people like you,_ Fili thought and considered if there was a politically correct way of expressing that sentiment.

The guy _had_ to know. He just _had to_. Fili couldn’t remember the last time someone got genuinely, accidentally _lost_ in his own, personal, remote corner of Norway.

Plenty of people got ‘lost’ on purpose though. All of them, incidentally, photographers. All of them very friendly. All of them looking for a guide. Some of them looking for more…

Fili was highly desirable in some circles and painfully aware of it.

Easily and by far the most experienced tracker in this part of the world, picky about who he worked with, but capable of setting up that perfect shot time and time again. With his beautiful house in a stunning location and intimate knowledge of some of the wildest mountain ranges on the planet, for a certain type of people, he was a dream.

“I know! You’re a photographer!” Fili was saved by Kili’s triumphant declaration from where he was staring at a close-up of a hare in the snow, one of many lining the walls.

“Sometimes,” Fili repeated cautiously.

Kili wasn’t quite right but he also wasn’t completely wrong.

Not many people knew that Fili took his own photos. But then again, not many people had made it inside the inner sanctum of Fili’s home. And those who did –

It was amazing what some people were willing to do for an award-winning shot.

The last guy who made it inside Fili’s home, stayed in his life, in his _heart_ for over two years. Until one day, during a particularly good shoot he ran out of space on his camera, borrowed Fili’s memory card and never gave it back. And then he was gone.

He won the prestigious _Photo of the Year Award_ with one of the shots on that card. Only it wasn’t his.

It was then that Fili decided he wasn’t going to do this anymore; he wasn’t going to do _people_. He and his heart were going to stay safely away from any attachments.

“Are you okay?” The question was surprisingly gentle and accompanied by a pair of dark, perceptive eyes.

Located less than a foot away from his face.

Fili flailed and almost fell off his own sofa.

“Sorry. You seemed lost in thought there.”

“I was,” he admitted, trying to act casual. The first rule of dog training was: establish who the boss is. Kili was _not_ a dog ( _but then again, the_ eyes…), but it was the closest frame of reference Fili had.

“I was just saying that I’m into photography too!” Kili chirped. “Would you like to see some of my shots?”

Fili did not. He _knew_ where this was going –

The camera thrust in his hands was expensive. _Very_ expensive; in fact, it might have been the latest model. Definitely professional.

Fili’s heart sank.

Bewildered, Fili telegraphed a confused ‘WTF’ at his own emotional landscape.

The photos, by contrast, were… terrible. Amateurish and curiously mundane collection of roads, smudged trees, people waving, a sparrow, a pine cone, something that might have been a squirrel at least a mile away, interspersed with an occasional selfie in front of various town signs.

Fili’s heart played a fanfare.

Fili re-iterated the ‘WTF’ message.

“What do you think?” Came an unusually hesitant question from right over Fili’s shoulder.

 _I think that you’re either incredibly clever, or you’re punching waaay above your weight,_ Fili thought.

“I think they’re nice,” his mouth said.

It was in _that_ moment that Fili realised he was screwed.

* * *

By afternoon Kili gave in and reached for the guitar.

Fili let him have it. Firstly, because he figured that to get it back he’d have to wrestle the pixie (they _would_ , they _just would_ , and that was way too much contact for Fili’s rapidly worsening condition) and secondly, because it kept his hands occupied and his mind focussed on trying to assemble the notes into the most hair-rising cacophony Fili had ever heard.

That left him free to execute a tactical retreat into the kitchen area, from where, wielding various pots and pans and feeling marginally safer for it, Fili cautiously observed his leprechaun.

He looked so innocent like that: slightly lost and devastatingly hopeful, like he desperately needed someone to make sure he didn’t fall in the nearest hole and die, someone to lo –

Fili abruptly squeezed the halved lemon he was holding, narrowly missing his own eye with the squirting juice.

He took a deep breath, braced himself and looked again.

He looked like whoever he loved, he’d love with his whole heart.

Fili slammed the oven door with a lot more force than strictly necessary and stopped himself short of growling.

In front of him, in deep, melodious voice, Kili started humming some ancient ballad. It wasn’t even off-key.

Fili reached for the whiskey.

* * *

Presented with Fili’s simple lemon and herb chicken, the freeloader inhaled his portion as if he hadn’t eaten for a week and then proceeded to throw longing glances back towards the pan.

Fili watched him for a moment, playing a silent game of ‘will he? Won’t he?’ and then decided to up the stakes by nudging it slightly in his direction.

So that was the chicken gone. Was there something in the lore about not offering any food to a pixie?

Then again, at this stage, what else could possibly go wrong?!

Lots, as it turned out.

After dinner Kili decided that they _needed_ to decorate.

Why they _needed_ to do it, Fili had no idea. Granted, it was almost Christmas, but ever since he went back to living on his own, Fili didn’t bother. He didn’t see the point; the clutter only needed taking down after a few weeks.

He asked about it and got a rambling response, from which his compromised mind only managed to fish out: “Please”.

Somehow, that prompted him to climb back into his loft, where, after some digging, he’d managed to locate the long-forgotten box of ornaments.

Moments later he found himself untangling the Gordian Knot of All Things Cheerfully Flickering and absolutely not watching Kili’s arse ( _pert, shapely, where did those legs even begin?!_ ), while his pixie channelled a mountain goat and climbed all over the wooden beams and rafters of his home to fix the lights in place.

At least that seemed to tire him out.

Unnervingly quiet, Kili sighed dramatically and leaned heavily against the frame of the giant French door to Fili’s balcony, from which spot he proceeded to watch the fat snowflakes still stubbornly carpeting the world and look unreasonably attractive, illuminated by the soft glow of a thousand fairy light strings.

Fili sighed too and padded to the kitchen to fix him a hot cocoa.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, carefully handing over the steaming mug.

“Hm? Oh, it’s just that I only booked the hostel for three nights, and now it looks like for two of them I won’t even manage to get there.” Kili gave a humourless laugh. “I was planning to explore the mountains, get lost in the wilderness, where nobody could find me. See if I could find _myself_ instead,” he whispered.

Fili looked out into the darkness, where the faint outline of the peaks was only accentuated by the lighter shade of the turbulent skies above them.

“You _do_ know that it’s all private property, right?” he said, softer than he’d intended.

“What?!” Kili gaped. “But the website said: ‘enjoy the great outdoors! Connect with the nature –‘”

Fili shrugged. “You can connect with all twenty yards of it, in any direction. They have less than half an acre.”

Kili stared at him with such utter betrayal in his eyes that for a moment Fili hated himself.

He gave his pixie a sad smile and gently patted his shoulder. “Want to see what’s on the telly?” he muttered, in a transparent attempt at a distraction.

Kili didn’t look like he did, but he followed anyway.

Fili had purchased the land a few years back.

Having led countless nature documentary crews, photographers and adventurers, he’d seen it all: animals baited with food or downright herded in front of the camera, changes to their habitat when the lens made them famous, destruction of the very environment that was being documented. The wild wasn’t left _wild_ any more. And the people who caused it, constituted the sum total of Fili’s interactions with humanity.

So one day, Fili simply quit. He used the small fortune he’d earned to buy up as much wilderness as he could, set up a fence around it all, a system of cameras, registered it as a Wildlife Sanctuary and banned anyone from entering his little corner of nature.

Today, some of the animals he guarded were the last of their species.

And Fili was fairly certain he was the last of his species too.

* * *

The leprechaun was snoring.

That wasn’t even the most distressing part; it was the fact that Fili found it to be _comforting_.

At first they were watching side by side; Kili had nested, having accumulated various pillows and throws from all over Fili’s house, but at that point Fili almost expected him to.

Then a heavy weight leaned against Fili’s side and seemed to curl into it. Fili frowned and threw a confused glance to his right, where he was met with a pair of huge, silently questioning, dark eyes.

Fili lost that one. The weight _settled_.

Then, with a tired sigh, a head was rested on top of his shoulder.

Fili twitched, but didn’t object. His pixie was warm, and besides, there was a precarious balance to their arrangement which he dared not disturb.

When a lanky arm was flung across Fili’s mid-section some half an hour later, Fili capitulated, switched off the TV and allowed himself to be slowly toppled over, until they were more or less horizontal.

If he pulled the blanket over the stranger’s shoulders and carefully spread it over his legs, it was only because if he got ill, he’d probably have to stay for longer and freeload some more.

If he wrapped his arms around the warm body next to him, it was just to make sure that Kili didn’t fall off the sofa in the middle of the night, like he was fairly sure he would.

And maybe, just a tiny bit, because he remembered the forlorn expression from earlier and it just didn’t sit right with him.

* * *

Fili woke up alone.

He was on his sofa and there were two thick blankets tucked up meticulously around his body, all the way to his ears.

He yawned, nuzzled deeper into his covers and considered if it was possible that he’d dreamt up a hot leprechaun.

The cheerfully twinkling interior of his house seemed to be a proof to the contrary.

Fili sat up, stretched and looked around, but there was no sign of Kili anywhere.

 _Oh,_ his mind observed intelligently and Fili remembered how he’d wished that the guy would find his own way out only yesterday. _They always leave sooner or later_ , his heart whispered.

Fili rubbed at his chest as if he had an old injury there and pushed himself up to his feet. He wondered idly if there was something in the lore about pixies disappearing at midnight, or if that was some other fairy tale altogether.

It wasn’t until he was fetching the eggs for his breakfast that Fili spotted the familiar figure sitting on the snow-covered steps into his garden, wearing nothing but his stretched jumper.

Something blossomed under his ribs, suspiciously like happiness and terrifyingly addictive.

Fili stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.

Instead he pushed the door open and waded outside.

The snowfall must have stopped sometime in the night, because not even the finest of the glittering powder disturbed the crisp, cold air. The world was eerily still and quiet, bathed in the brilliant sun, out like a spotlight to shine upon Fili’s personal freeloader.

Kili’s eyes were full of longing as they followed the jagged mountain edges, wrapped in the last of the curling mist and sparkling in the reflection on the water of the lake below.

“What are we doing?” Fili asked, mainly for something to say.

Kili blinked, peered up at him and grinned. “Watch!”

And then he dipped a bright pink straw ( _where did he even get it from?!_ ) into Fili’s favourite enamel mug and carefully blew out a perfectly round, sizeable bubble right onto the fresh snow nearby.

As Fili watched, the filigree stars of frost appeared on the surface, swirled around for a moment, before blooming like flowers and spreading to cover the entire surface area of the bubble. They both held their breath, but it didn’t last more than a handful of seconds before it burst.

“Did you know they could do that?! I didn’t!” Kili blew out another two, watched them settle and picked up his expensive camera to try and catch them freezing.

Fili gingerly sat down next to him, transfixed by the magic before his eyes.

There was joy about the other man; joy and hope and strength and quiet delight, as if the events of last night never happened, a quirky personality and an unexpected depth beneath it all, and Fili felt himself drawn to it, realised that he wanted to be a part of it, a _catalyst for it_ , if he could manage it. Whatever Kili really was, he was 100% of it.

“I’m not really a photographer,” Fili said into the soft silence around them, because his heart wanted to have its answers. “I’m a mountain guide. Or I was. Now I’m more of a caretaker; all of this is mine,” he waved a hand vaguely at the landscape before them and waited for the inevitable.

“Oooooh! Why didn’t you say sooner?!” Kili’s face lit up. “There’s still a day or two left, maybe longer, if I’m lucky! Are you available for hire?”

Fili watched the last of the bubbles burst and deflate into a thin film of frost.

“Get out,” he whispered.

“But –“

“You _almost_ had me. Overdone it on the surprise just now, but ten out of ten on the prep. Excellent lost tourist routine,” he hissed, getting up to his feet and marching back to his house to retrieve the guy’s things.

“What ‘routine’?!” Kili waded after him. “I’m just –“

“Yes, I know! ‘Into photography’. I knew all along – you’re hardly the first one to try it. And by the way, those photos are _shit_ , so I hope they were just a part of the decoy!”

“Actually –“

Fili definitely preferred the ones who jumped his fences or tried to disable the cameras. He just didn’t understand why it was necessary to involve his heart in the whole kerfuffle. It had only worked _once_ \- did they _really_ think he was desperate enough to be fooled again?!

“Get off my property _right now_ or I’m going to press charges! And don’t even _think_ about trespassing on my land,” he growled, before shoving the backpack, the fur-lined coat and the goddamn knitted scarf at Kili and frog-marching him to his front door.

“I don’t understand! I’m just a backpacker, I swear! All I’m interested in is a bit of a hike!” Kili whined, now safely past Fili’s threshold.

“My ass!” Fili hissed and shut the door in his face.

“That too,” came from the other side.

Fili opened the door. “What?!”

“What?!”

The huge, brown eyes proclaimed utter innocence. Kili _could_ and probably frequently _did_ get away with murder.

The brunet raised his hands in an appeasing gesture. “I’ll go, I’ll go! I’m going now.” He took a few steps walking backwards and then finally turned.

Fili watched him. He wasn’t past the gate yet.

He was right.

“You could come with me, you know!” Kili tried one last time, whirling around again, his backpack hoisted on one shoulder. “We could have adventures! Just you and me! Doesn’t have to be here, if you feel so strongly about this land. But we could find… somewhere.”

There it was again. He’d been hurt, but he recovered, because he found something else more important to him, that was still worth fighting for.

In another unauthorised emotional response, Fili realised he felt something like admiration for the guy, when he should have been feeling only angry and hurt.

He tried to respond, but whatever he was going to say in reply with was lost in the steadily approaching whirr of a rotor.

Fili squinted at the sky, where his personal airspace was being disturbed, most unusually, by a helicopter.

He wasn’t looking – that was his excuse – which was why, when Kili appeared out of nowhere and yanked him out the door by his wrist, Fili let himself be pulled away.

“Quick! Into the forest! Before they spot us!”

“Who are these people?” Fili demanded.

“My enemies!” Kili declared, ducking under a woefully threadbare pine tree.

“Your Royal Highness. It is time to go home,” sounded a megaphone announcement in a thick, Scottish accent.

Fili stared.

Kili whined. “Is there a cave somewhere nearby? Maybe like a big one, that you know very well and they don’t?”

“No. No, cave.” Fili continued to stare.

“You. Blondie. Relinquish the Prince. We are authorised to open fire. I repeat: relinquish Prince Kilian immediately,” the megaphone demanded.

Kili whined again –

“Relinquish –“

\- And seemed to make up his mind.

He snogged Fili hard, a little _too hard_ perhaps, if the taste of copper in Fili’s mouth was any indication. But it was warm and real and full of emotions that Fili was going to spend weeks untangling.

“I gotta go,” the heir to the throne of Norway whispered against his lips.

“You do?” Fili found himself saying.

“Fucks’ sakes, Kili!” the megaphone blared at them both.

Kili growled, turned and strutted out into the open. “I am entirely relinquished!” he announced. “God damn it, Dwalin, I was _having a moment!_ ”

* * *

_Three weeks later._

Fili found the freeloader in the morning.

This time he only sighed, resigned to the fact that it wasn’t going away. He prodded the sleeping form with the tip of his shoe and sat himself cross-legged on the floor next to his visitor.

“Did you run away from home again?”

“Mhmmm,” came a sleepy reply.

“Are they going to come in their chopper and try to storm my house?”

“Not for a while yet. Dwalin will think that I couldn’t _possibly_ be stupid enough to run to the same place twice.”

Fili nodded, more to himself than for Kili’s benefit.

“Are you going to try and get in my Wildlife Sanctuary?”

“Is your balcony off limits? The garden?”

“No, those are fine.”

“Then no.”

Fili gave another thoughtful nod.

“Fili?”

He turned to eye the lump next to his hip.

“Would you like me to kiss you again?”

Fili felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards.

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

* * *

_Five years later._

Fili felt proud of himself.

The wedding had been a scandal. First openly gay member of the royal family. First royal gay marriage. The line of succession in tatters. And that was _before_ Kili’s ultimatum about the 6 months of ‘private leave’ per year or else he abdicate altogether.

“You’re like the bloody Cinderella,” he told the lump in his bed, a lump that he was firmly spooning. “Back in your pumpkin carriage at midnight,” he grumbled.

“If I’m the Cinderella then Dwalin makes for a shit Fairy Godmother,” came a sleepy response.

Fili snorted.

He tried to resist, he really did, but his happy ending had gotten to him anyway.

In the course of the first two years, Kili had managed to run away from home and ‘get lost’ on Fili’s property twenty seven times. “Is this the hostel?” became both their traditional greeting and a bit of an inside joke.

It got to the point where Fili bought his own megaphone and was casually trumpeting back at the helicopter whenever it came to fetch the wayward Prince.

The responses varied from: “He’s not coming out, I’ve introduced him to hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream and he’s offered to pay me in blow jobs,” to: “now listen here, I’m the hostage in this situation and need to be relinquished immediately! Take him away!”

After that they got engaged and Kili insisted it was no longer abduction if it was his fiancée.

Kili did learn how to take decent photos under Fili’s watchful eye, though a comforting portion of his shots remained blurred, too close, too far, or prosaically wonderful iterations of the same vistas over and over again.

He was also allowed into the Sanctuary after all, on the condition that he strictly followed Fili’s lead, his rules and generally disturbed as little as possible. Fili declared it his engagement present.

They stayed engaged for three years. Plenty of time for Fili to make sure that his heart was safe and that he wouldn’t have to change who he was. That it drove the tabloids and Kili’s family wild was an added bonus.

Kili joked that it was his wedding gift that finally made Fili say “I do.”

He’d been buying up patches of wilderness up and down the country ever since he realised why Fili was acting so protective of his Sanctuary. By the time he’d managed to bundle it all neatly up into a _Consort’s Trust_ , he had enough to start their own little kingdom.

Fili said it changed the industry.

Kili wouldn’t know; he was too busy living his ‘happily ever after’.


	3. Chapter 3

Fili patiently endured the chattering of his teeth, as his trusty, battered Range Rover clambered along the bumpy surface of the field. He was lucky that, unusually for this time of the year, it hadn’t snowed yet, so he was able to take the car in the first place.

Global warming, he supposed.

He parked seemingly in the middle of nowhere and got out, spreading a cheerfully patterned blanket across the bonnet. He didn’t want the engine to cool down so much that it might refuse to start up again. He loved his car to bits, but it did need nursing along sometimes.

Fili looked around.

This was definitely the right place: the boundary between the worlds.

He didn’t have to wait long.

First, the mist started rolling around the ground, slowly rising upwards, until the whole place looked like someone had left the smoke machine running for too long.

Then the very middle of the misty curtain cleared, revealing another place altogether:

A place covered in fluffy snow drifts and yet more white stuff dancing whimsically in the air. A place which, by this time of the year, was running almost perpetual twilight, despite it being only a few minutes to noon. A place with a track running alongside the visible section, eventually crossing over into Fili’s field, where it re-appeared in the form of two well-trodden trails in the bleak grass, seemingly leading nowhere – one of those that Fili could never explain.

Then a quiet, rhythmical sound of bells could be heard, gradually getting closer, until eventually out of the darkness came a little, furry pony. It was pulling behind it a small, meticulously decorated sleigh with a single occupant half-sitting, half-lying under a pile of furs and blankets.

The figure waved cheerfully at Fili, making him smile and wave back.

The animal slowed and then came to a stop seemingly of its own volition. The driver got out, patted its flank and moved to take a gentle hold of its bridle and press their foreheads together.

“Straight home now, Nutmeg,” the stern words carried on the wind. “No fraternising with the mares! I know what you’re like.”

Fili sniggered and took a sip of coffee from his travel mug.

The pony threw its head and neighed.

“You say that, but you pull paternity leave right before Christmas again and they’ll have you fixed,” the figure muttered, leading the pony into a wide U-turn. “Safe travels now, Meggie! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Another snort as the pony ambled on his way.

The animal had been waved goodbye with just as much enthusiasm as Fili had been waved hello, and then Kili turned on his heel and ran straight into Fili’s waiting arms.

* * *

Fili remembered the first time he met his elf.

The weather was truly awful and the generator had packed up two days prior, so Fili relied on his fireplace to keep himself warm and resorted to checking up on his reindeer herds five times a day.

He wasn’t alarmed by the noises at first – the house was old, it creaked – but when the sounds innocuously continued, in a clear pattern of someone moving about his kitchen, Fili went to investigate.

The stranger was heating some milk on the stove, while snacking on a thick slice of Fili’s smoked ham and an occasional olive.

Fili crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway.

It took a moment before the man noticed him, but when he did, he whirled around so fast he almost toppled over the milk saucepan.

“Oh! H-Hello!”

Fili arched an eyebrow.

“Blessing upon you and your dwelling!” The guy recited, wide eyed and clearly uncomfortable. “Thank the Stars for your kindness and hospitality – I thought I would surely perish. People just don’t remember these days. I stumbled upon two other houses, but I could only look in through the windows as I couldn’t enter.”

“You got lost?” Fili half-deduced, half-guessed.

The stranger nodded. “It’s a terrible storm out there, and it gets dark so quickly at this time of the year! I got separated from my pony, I didn’t know where I was, must have been wandering the woods for hours… I was so relieved when I found the milk and honey left for me! I’m so grateful there are still those who would welcome us into their homes!”

Fili frowned. “Milk and – what?!”

“Honey,” the stranger finished for him and pointed behind himself to the house’s back door. “Outside…” he added hesitantly.

Fili marched right past him and threw the door open. He didn’t mind offering shelter to lost souls like this guy, especially not in this weather, when staying outside meant almost certain death; but he preferred to know if there was some sort of a giant advertising banner outside his house that read: ‘free food here! Everybody welcome!’

Apart from the howling winds and a violent snow storm, his back yard looked very much like it always did.

The guy squeezed himself alongside him in the narrow entry way. “Milk,” he said, pointing confidently to Fili’s cool store.

“Oh, that’s not – That’s just my fridge at the moment. The generator died.”

“And the honey…?” the stranger pointed to the overhang of Fili’s thatched roof.

“There’s no –“ Fili squinted. There _was_ something there, something sticking out a little, as if some of the thatch got loose. _Bee’s nest_ , he realised, transferring his gaze to the man standing next to him.

The guy stared at the nest, then back at Fili, then back at the nest, then back at Fili. “You mean –“

“I didn’t even know that was there.” Fili ushered them back inside and closed the door.

“So I’m not… welcome?” His visitor looked shocked to the core, as if his whole world was about to fall apart.

“I didn’t say that. I just wasn’t expecting company…”

“I’m _not welcome_ ,” the stranger repeated, looking on the verge of a panic attack. “I trespassed! I ate your food! I’m –“ he threw a terrified glance at Fili.

“Hey –“

“Please don’t make me your slave!”

“ _What_?!”

“I’m not even that good, I don’t have any powers yet! I just… make toys. And not even the fancy ones!”

Fili reached out for the guy’s shoulders on instinct, but it only made him flinch and try to curl up in on himself.

“Hey.”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! I thought this was a safe place -”

“Hey!”

A whimper.

“What’s your name?”

The man looked like heard his sentence. “Ki- Kili,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome to stay, for as long as you like, Kili. I’m not kicking you out.”

The guy looked up, hope shining in his eyes. “I’m… welcome?”

Fili smiled. “Yes,” he confirmed, as unambiguous as he could possibly be. “And you’re also welcome to share my food.”

“Oh.” Peace returned to the dark, whiskey-coloured eyes and with it to Fili’s soul. “Then my full name is Kili Twinklestar, Executive Engineer in the service of His Holiness the Santa, the Handcrafted Toys Division. Well met, human!” he grinned.

Fili blinked.

And then he shrugged. This _was_ Lapland after all, and if the magic didn’t have its place here, then it didn’t have a place _anywhere else_ in the world.

“I’m Fili. Welcome to my home.”

* * *

“Do you like my new coat?” Kili wriggled in the passenger’s seat, as they slowly kangaroo-d their way back to the road.

Fili threw the garment an assessing look. As he watched, one of the dark, furry ears mounted on top of the hood twitched, when Kili, who was simultaneously playing with the car’s radio, stumbled briefly upon a station.

“Did anything die, so you could make it? Was it alive once upon a time?” he asked cautiously, choosing his words and trying to sound casual.

Kili looked outraged. “Don’t be ridiculous! I stitched it myself, one hair at a time. I decided I needed to blend in better.”

“Is it… Is it alive now?” Fili tried again, not at all sure that Kili was blending in at all, seeing as the same ear twitched again and then seemed to flop a little alongside its twin on the other side.

“It’s just reacting to my mood,” Kili huffed, bored now of fighting the static – the signal this far North was hardly reliable. “Like I said: I made it myself.”

“Right.” Despite his reservations, Fili couldn’t help but feel charmed. “It suits you,” he finally decided. “And it looks very warm.”

“It is! It’s like curling up among the softest –“ he threw Fili a dubious look. “- It’s warm,” he finished lamely.

Fili wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t going to get the reference or because Kili thought it might prompt some more awkward questions about the fur’s origins.

“What are _those_?!” came an unexpected follow-up question, accompanied by a tug at the fabric covering his thigh.

“Hm? You mean my trousers? Don’t you like them?”

Kili’s face was sporting an expression that could only be described as ‘morbid fascination’.

“I thought they’d lend me some gravitas. They’re a classic!” Fili tried to defend his fashion choices.

Kili cleared his throat and twisted so he could watch the landscape outside the window.

“Kili?”

Kili patted his knee soothingly, without looking. “Don’t worry love, we’ll _burn them_ just as soon as they’re off you.”

* * *

Being in love with Kili wasn’t always plain sailing.

In essence, it was like being in a long-term, long-distance relationship, with little to no manual on how to operate it.

And yet, when after almost a week of harbouring his newfound elf, the sound of hoofs came from in front of his house, Fili didn’t hesitate:

“Will I ever see you again?” he asked, while Kili packed up his stash of wood and metal work.

“Would you like to?” the elf asked coyly, positively sauntering towards him.

“I would,” Fili agreed.

“Well then. You better make me a promise.”

So Fili did. He pulled Kili close and kissed him.

That caused a whole new bout of flailing, blushing and speechless indignation.

“I didn’t -! I haven’t been granted -! What kind of -?!”

And then Kili fled.

It wasn’t the first or the last faux pas Fili was going to commit.

A month later he received a letter – one of the really old-fashioned ones, on some ornate writing paper, written in real ink instead of a ball pen.

 _I’ve tested positive for True Love and been granted emotional leave to take at my leisure,_ it read.

It was the least romantic declaration of love Fili had ever seen.

These days Kili spent ten months of the year in his own world, which he called the Never-Never-Land, and the remaining two, December and January, with Fili.

“Isn’t that your busiest period?” Fili asked him once.

Kili looked sheepish. “It is, but I always work extra hard throughout the year and I’ve got all my orders ready before I leave. I just couldn’t imagine leaving you to be alone on Christmas,” he added more quietly.

That, in turn, was one of the most romantic gestures Fili had ever witnessed.

It wasn’t though as if for the remaining ten months Fili was forgotten – apparently if you were loved by an elf, you _knew_ you were loved.

And lucky. You were also incredibly lucky.

There were the lost reindeer, miraculously returned of their own accord, only with colourful baubles decorating their antlers.

There were hearts with elaborate swirling motives around them pressed into the snow in front of Fili’s house with such precision that the aliens would have been envious.

There were bundles of cards, beautifully hand-painted in water colours, delivered for Fili’s convenience always on the first of November.

Warm, flickering lights in the woods, where no one lived.

His car starting smoothly, when it had no right to start at all.

Beautiful Northern Lights in the sky on those nights when there was nothing on TV.

And a thousand other little signs, which only Fili ever recognised.

As for his own part, there was always fresh milk and honey – and sometimes other snacks too – laid out on the table behind the house, waiting for a wary elf.

* * *

Still in his pyjamas and wrapped up in a bath robe, Fili was leaning against the kitchen counter and sipping his tea. His eyes lazily followed the soft, white flurry outside, patiently building up on the foot or so it had managed in the night.

Kili _usually_ brought snow with him. There was something about him – a small fragment of his magic, which followed him wherever he went.

The other dead giveaway that Kili was home were the presents. Mysteriously appearing in places where they were sure to be found, as well as some where they’d only be discovered in June, they seemed to gradually litter the place from the day Fili had said the traditional: “Welcome to my home” and Kili crossed his threshold.

He found two of those already this morning, sitting innocently on top of the toboggan outside.

Once, just once, Fili had made the mistake of unpacking one as soon as he found it.

Kili almost had a heart attack.

So now he obediently stashed them under the Christmas tree, along with the ones he prepared himself, to await their proper, allocated opening time.

Kili wasn’t up yet – he always slept in for the first day or two. Fili suspected that Crossing exhausted him, but the elf always insisted he was just fine.

Fortunately, that did give Fili the time to prepare a surprise or two of his own.

* * *

At first, sharing his home with an elf felt like an odd experience.

For one, Kili frequently talked to the things that weren’t there:

“Is he a nice human? Yes? Looks after you properly? Oh, _that_ long?!”

“What have you got there?” Fili narrowed his eyes, expecting at least a spider.

Kili turned, but in his carefully cupped hands there was absolutely nothing. “Don’t be scared, it’s just a house sprite,” he said, carefully depositing absolutely nothing onto the wall. He watched it climb, smiled and then glanced at the wall opposite, where he seemed to observe several nothings, before his gaze came to rest on the corner by the ceiling, where it lingered for a good long while.

Fili stared at his walls with growing alarm, then back at Kili, then back at the corner, trying to look _harder_.

“They’re completely harmless; born out of familiarity and… happiness. Most places have them,” Kili explained, his expression soft, as he continued to admire Fili’s ceiling.

Once he was gone, Fili padded closer, pulled up his phone, switched on the torch and squinted at the innocent patch he’d now flooded with light… but there was still absolutely nothing there.

For another, Kili could be offended by the strangest of things:

“Am I welcome, or am I _not_ welcome?!” he demanded, storming in one day.

“You _are_ welcome.” Fili knew that one by now and he wasn’t falling for it again.

“Then what’s with the shoes?!”

Fili went through a mental list of his available options and settled on: “I’m sorry.”

It worked. Kili’s expression softened as he wordlessly passed Fili his muddied wellies. “You’re lucky I caught them before the morning. We just don’t need that sort of black mark against our names. Do you _want_ to find coal in them first thing?!”

Fili _tried_ to resist, he really did. “… Actually some free fuel for the fireplace would be –“

Kili scowled.

Fili ducked his head in an attempt to hide his dimples and let himself be escorted right to the bathroom sink.

But his elf was also kind, and warm, and patient, and most of all, incredibly loveable.

Fili watched him bend the wire into neat, uniform shapes of stars for a garland he was making, and then gently tap each point to light a tiny LED bulb there; watched the quiet enjoyment in his eyes and realised how much he’d missed people who didn’t want anything from him.

Kili’s favourite medium was wood, from which he carved the most fantastical sculptures or puzzles, but he could also do metal work, blow glass, or even form crystals. He was incredibly creative and Fili found that it was perhaps during those long, winter evenings, when Kili crafted and Fili watched with endless fascination, that he first fell in love with the quirky, otherworldly creature.

It was terribly easy after that: Kili smiled, came to him, kept returning, and Fili’s soul felt like it could have leapt out of his chest every time he did. Together they stumbled through an array of cultural differences, overcame them, enthralled each other with novelty of their respective worlds, and eventually started sharing their secrets.

He couldn’t tell when exactly they turned _serious_.

One day he simply knew more about Kili than he knew about himself.

One day Kili pushed and kissed him.

One day he gently ran his fingers over the trembling skin and the other half of his soul met him half way.

* * *

Kili finally emerged just after ten, and Fili was willing to bet that it was the smell that got him out of bed.

He shuffled heavily towards Fili, wrapped himself around his back, deposited a ‘good morning’ kiss to Fili’s shoulder and pressed his face into the warm crook of Fili’s neck. There he parked himself, happily holding onto his human and topping up the last of his naps.

“I made cupcakes,” Fili shamelessly baited, swiping the counter clean.

“Mmm.”

“We could decorate them together, if you like. After breakfast.”

There was a tighter squeeze, as Kili’s body and mind disagreed on what their priorities were.

If handcrafting toys was Kili’s favourite job, then baking was his true passion. He often talked about how one day he hoped to earn a promotion into the Bakery Team and enjoyed practicing his skills in Fili’s kitchen.

Which was fortunate really, since Fili really enjoyed eating the results.

Baking _together_ though was right up there, with opening presents and getting them just right.

“With little gingerbread men?” came an oddly specific question.

Fili laughed and carefully wriggled within the death grip around his waist to face his sleepy elf.

“Yes, with little gingerbread men,” he agreed.

“And I can do the icing?”

“And you can do the icing.”

Kili’s face lit up with a Cheshire grin, and Fili silently congratulated himself.

* * *

Sitting at Fili’s worn, wooden kitchen table, wearing one of Fili’s stretched t-shirts, a pair of fleecy pyjama bottoms, some stripy socks and an expression of utter concentration as he stuck the tip of his tongue out and tried to get all the buttons in a neat row, Kili looked incredibly human.

Except he’d pulled his hair back.

Fili hadn’t even noticed the pointy ears until the third week of Kili’s fourth visit. His elf had gotten stuck in his jumper and it was only when Fili helped free him –

It was such a normal, _real_ thing: an ear. A pointy ear. Right there.

Fili reached, touched –

Kili froze.

Fili traced the odd shape with the pad of his finger, suddenly realised that technically they weren’t even the same species.

“Hey, don’t judge me!” Kili huffed defensively, but the bridge of his nose and his high cheek bones were definitely gaining some colour. “I’m only a young elf! They will get more shapely with time.”

Now Fili froze.

“How old _are you?_ ” he asked and he could have kicked himself for never thinking to ask sooner.

“Seventy seven,” Kili mumbled and ducked his head.

Fili stared, not entirely sure how he felt about it. “What’s that in human years?”

“Human years, human years,” Kili grumbled as he did a bit of mental maths. “Twentyyy… eight,” he announced, watching him closely for a reaction.

“So you’re a… grown elf, then,” Fili double-checked.

Kili snorted. “Obviously! How old are _you_?”

His eyes darted to Fili’s own, perfectly round ears, and he reached out –

“Thirty three,” Fili felt the gentle touch, the curious movement following the curve. “They… won’t get any more pointy,” he clarified.

“Oh.” Kili’s expression was unreadable for a moment, but then it morphed into a soft smile.

“You don’t mind my _weird_ ears?” Fili asked, feeling unusually self-conscious.

“You don’t mind mine?”

Fili couldn’t help but smile. “No. I like yours just fine.”

* * *

Kili was restless.

He’d been like that for a few days now, in fact, pretty much from the moment he Crossed. He was easy enough to occupy for a while, but sooner or later he always returned to fussing, re-arranging, or simply watching the house sprites slowly move across the floor.

Fili waited. Whatever it was, Kili would tell him when he was ready.

In the end Fili’s elf came to him on the evening of the third day. He hovered by the door for a while, then padded closer, climbed into Fili’s lap and curled up on top of his chest like a spoiled cat.

Fili wrapped his arms around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Fili!”

“Sorry.”

The silence stretched between them for a long moment, while Kili wrangled his thoughts once more.

“You know how I’ve only got four more years of my Apprenticeship left?”

Fili had a vague idea of the peculiar ‘career progression’ route that the elves took. They all started as a Junior Helper, then progressed onto an Executive, which culminated in choosing a Specialisation and usually a brand new Division, such as Fashion, or, say, Baking. He wasn’t entirely sure what came next, he thought it might have been a post of an Inventor –

“Are they going to take away your emotional leave?” he whispered.

Kili frowned. “No! I love you; my emotional leave is for life,” he declared. “But –“

Fili watched him.

Kili looked away, tucked his head back under his chin. “And you know how, on the day of our Graduation, we’re all allowed to ask for a special power to use?” he picked up.

“Yes, like the knowledge of Apple’s coding languages, or control of plant growth…”

“I’m going to ask for the ability to die.”

“You – _WHAT?!_ ” Fili almost threw him off.

“I want to be a mortal!” Kili announced, sitting bolt upright.

“That’s _not_ a super power!”

Fili’s elf looked at him funny. “Of course it is!”

“You are _not_ doing that!”

Kili narrowed his eyes and Fili belatedly realised his mistake. “ _You_ have days and days and days! Whole human years’ worth of them! And I keep missing them, because I can’t be here! I just want to be with you!” he wavered in his own conviction and Fili realised that in that moment Kili’s heart hung in the balance. “If I’m still… _welcome_ …” the elf finished quietly.

Fili stared.

Kili stared too. Motionless, impossibly brave and hauntingly beautiful. An immortal creature that could have had anything, but chose… Fili.

Fili reached for him, cradled his cheek in the palm of his hand, found the pointy end of his ear with the tips of his fingers.

“You will always be welcome in my life,” he whispered. “And you will always have me, for as long as I’m welcome in yours.”

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

Kili was a star.

Like any self-respecting star, he spent his time traversing the beautiful darkness of a night-time sky, following the whimsical currents of the Aurora, bathed in the brilliant radiance of his own light.

That was, until he was rudely interrupted.

One of the bastards below had wished upon him. The wish, in that annoying way wishes had, shot up right in front of his pony’s hooves, startling the bejeezus out of the poor animal. It reared up, causing Kili to comment loudly and in a language entirely inappropriate for majestic little stars, lose control of his faithful steed and plummet head-first into the sky he was used to admiring at a much slower pace.

The plummeting took some time.

Finally, Kili flopped, rather wetly, into a soft, fluffy pile of fresh snow.

Compared to the lifeless coldness of space, the snow felt positively balmy, so Kili decided to lay there a while, pondering the sudden departure of his dignity and the general unfairness of his fate.

He had places to be, a sky to cross! He needed to get to –

Kili frowned, tried to focus –

He couldn’t remember. It couldn’t have been all that important. No matter. He was sure it would come back to him eventually.

He groaned dramatically and tried to roll over, instantly sinking another foot into the snow drift.

“Well, that’s just grand,” he muttered to no one in particular and scowled at the glorious panorama of the twinkling little assholes above him.

\---

The term ‘falling star’ was incorrect.

By the time a star came to be anything other than just, well, a ‘star’, the ‘falling’ had been done, leaving Kili, even from a purely grammatical point of view, entirely and undeniably _‘fallen’_. But then a ‘fallen star’ brought to mind entirely inappropriate and demeaning connotations, so instead, Kili preferred to think of himself as a ‘gracefully descended star’.

There were only two ways to ‘un-descend’, and they both involved finding the human who did this to him. One was to grant the mortal’s wish; the other was to make them take it back.

Kili was firmly going for the option number two, with a generous helping of some strongly worded feedback.

To this end, he was currently ~~terrorising the locals~~ , interviewing the local would-be-wishers.

He knew he’d fallen vaguely in the right area, and granted, with his flowing silvery cape and a tunic edged with fine embroidery of little stars, he was attracting some odd looks, but that was fine – it only increased his chances of coming across _his_ human.

Besides, this was Lapland, and compared to some of the tourists, Kili wasn’t the weirdest thing that ever happened to it.

Kili shook the man he’d recently caught by the lapels of his coat, glowered at him distractedly, before discarding him into the nearest pile of snow.

Wrong mortal. Again. Kili moved on.

For one of the most remote places on the planet, the village had entirely too many people.

\---

Fili was minding his own business.

He was coming back from the village with his weekly groceries, as well as some parcels he’d ordered on a whim.

The days at this time of the year were only about 4 hours long, which meant that despite the late morning hour, Fili was driving in the dark. He didn’t mind – the snow reflected enough moonlight to make everything twilight-like and once he got to his cabin and left all the light pollution behind, he’d have the whole star-lit sky all to himself.

Which was a lovely prospect, until a lunatic stepped out right in front of his hood.

Fili hit the brakes on instinct, yanked the wheel, somehow managed to suppress the nausea as the world spun wildly in front of his windows, and finally swivelled to a gentle stop sideways across the road, some thirty meters later.

All in all Fili counted this as a spectacular success.

He got out of the car and backtracked the abstract zig zags of his tyre marks in the snow.

The guy stood right where Fili left him, except this time he was pointing a newly-appeared bow and arrow at Fili’s chest.

“What in the _blazes_ -?!” the stranger demanded.

He could say that again.

Fili could only stare. The guy looked like he ran away from one of those fantasy conventions, where he had clearly been going for some weird, dark-haired Elsa look.

“Where did you come from?!” was all Fili could manage.

The bow _vanished_ , the stranger shrugged and pointed behind himself. Only now did Fili notice an odd tunnel apparently carved right through the compacted wall of snow on the side of the road.

“Tell me, mortal, have you recently wished upon a star?” came a return question.

Fili blinked. “I – what?!”

The stranger rolled his eyes. “A star,” he repeated. “Little twinkly point in the sky, insanely useful to you, when _left alone_ to carry on with its business, up there, _in the sky_ , where it belongs. Provides you with the only source of light during half of your existence, allows you to navigate –“ he stopped abruptly and squinted at the horizon in an entirely adorable way. “What’s _that_?!” he demanded instead.

Fili turned and squinted as well. “You mean the sun?”

True enough, during the course of their conversation the sky above them lip up in brilliant purples, pinks and oranges, as if in preparation for the true, ah, _star_ of the show, which was emerging majestically above the line of the trees just now.

Fili turned back just in time to see the guy sigh, sway on his feet and keel over in the middle of the road.

\---

Kili was playing with the light switch.

 _Flick_ and now it was light. _Flick_ and now darkness reigned once more. _Flick_ -

He’d always wondered what those faint lines and brighter blobs of light were, down below.

 _Flick_ -

“Huh.”

The mortal – ‘Fili’, he was led to believe –

 _Flick_ -

“Hmmmmm.”

– was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed on his chest, watching him watch the lamp, a crease forming in between his eyebrows, which Kili was not a fan of, somehow.

Kili had – he was led to believe – fainted (it was a preposterous idea, Kili had never fainted in his life, he’d fall right off the firmament, if he did!), was brought back to the mortal’s home, where he ‘slept’ (again, Kili didn’t ‘sleep’ - his pony would have wandered all over the sky!) right through all the hours of daylight, until he woke up, tucked in, in a surprisingly comfortable, but stiflingly hot bed.

He had instantly flipped all the covers aside and spread himself, appropriately star-shaped, across said bed, attempting, with every fibre of his being, to radiate the heat he’d accidentally accumulated.

“Huh.” It was the first time Kili had said it, taking stock of his person, now apparently clad in a stretched top, annoyingly sliding off one of his shoulders, which proclaimed ‘j o y d I v I s I o n’ wavy line, wavy line, wavy line, lots of wavy lines, and a pair of shorts.

And then somebody flipped the switch and there was light!

Kili had been distracted by this marvel of pure witchcraft, which rendered him obsolete, ever since.

“Was there someone else with you? Someone you might want me to call?” the mortal wasn’t giving up.

“No,” Kili told him resolutely.

 _Flick_ -

Fili took a tentative three steps forward and switched to hovering in front of a chest of drawers.

Kili eyed him suspiciously.

 _Flick_ -

“Look, are you _really_ okay? It’s just that you seem to have come out of nowhere, your clothes had been soaked through and you were completely dead to the world until ten minutes ago.”

“ _You_ try shining in front of a hundred million galaxies right in your face, and we’ll see how well you do!” Kili snapped. “I wasn’t ‘dead’; I was just… _recovering_.”

The mortal made a move as if he wanted to touch him, or maybe sit next to him, but Kili’s measured glare made him stop dead in his tracks and try to turn it into an awkward rub at the back of his neck.

“But you could have been. Dead, I mean. I almost ran you over today,” he said quietly. “Who _are_ you?”

Kili gave him another once-over.

“I’m a star,” he admitted eventually, carefully watching for a reaction. There was no point hiding his identity, when it was tied to what Kili needed to achieve anyway.

“A star…? Of a show?” Fili laughed nervously. “Should I have heard of you? I don’t watch an awful lot of telly, and anyway, the signal this far up North –“

_Flick_

Kili slowly allowed his inner light to unfold and fill the room as if it was daylight.

“A star,” he repeated, pointedly.

“A star,” Fili echoed, and slowly slid down along all seven drawers to sit down heavily on the floor.

\---

“You alright there, Twilight?”

‘Kili’ – having achieved the maximum dramatic effect possible, his star had finally revealed his name – didn’t seem to be.

He was currently wrestling with the washing machine door, re-living, probably for the very first time, the desperate plea of all the owners of single socks and forgotten t-shirts since about the 1950s.

“Give it back!” he demanded, before producing a heavy-looking sword out of thin air, in a novel, and frankly alarming, approach to rectifying laundry problems.

“Whoah there now!” Fili put himself between Kili and his white goods. “It will, just as soon as the cycle is finished. Patience, Twinklesocks. Macaroon?” he tempted with a the treats he’d just plated instead, in a bid to distract his sullen visitor.

That said macaroons were obnoxiously red and heart-shaped, was something that Fili sincerely hoped Kili would overlook. He got them in a sale, a _Valentine’s Day_ sale, and they have lived in the far reaches of Fili’s cupboard, right next to that place where the tuna tins went to die, ever since.

You couldn’t go wrong with sugar, could you? At first, he thought to heat up some soup or make some toast, eggs, or even just a coffee, but switching on the cooker caused Kili to hiss and puff up like a cat and the kettle almost got shot with an arrow.

His star was not a fan of hot things.

Kili ignored the plate thrust in his face and instead flopped to sit cross-legged in front of the washing machine.

“I don’t have the time for this!” he huffed, his eyes following the spinning garments forlornly, causing his head to rotate in rhythm. “I need to find my human.”

Fili gingerly lowered himself down to the carpet next to him. It seemed rude to stand towering over his guest. “ _Your_ human?” he prompted gently.

“Yeah, the _dipshit_ who shot me down in the first place! He must be around here _somewhere_ \- we, stars, have an unerring aim and sense of direction! It’s almost like an internal compass, based on our inherent ability to read the complex magnetic fields. It’s only a matter of time before I find him, and then I’ll –“ Kili’s hands demonstrated some very violent things that would befall the perpetrator of all his life’s problems.

“How do you even shoot down a star in the first place?” Fili pressed curiously, reaching for a macaroon himself.

“You wish upon it, obviously!”

Fili twitched.

“’I want a pony’,” Kili continued in a long-suffering tone, “‘please, let us stay together forever’, ‘I wish my job interview went well’, ‘oh, shining star, send me my one true love’, ‘let my mother-in-law kick the bucket sooner rather than later’ and all that nonsense.” He reached for a macaroon from the plate in Fili’s lap and bit into it absentmindedly. “And then they’re off, out there, ricocheting all over the sky, screwing up the orbits and bothering innocent, hard-working stars. Do you have _any_ idea what a wish like that can do when it zooms screeching right past your pony’s ass? You could be all the way out to Jupiter before you manage to say ‘fuckity fuck!’”

Fili squirmed, eyes fixed firmly on the second rinse taking place in front of them, as if it was the most fascinating thing in all the universe.

Kili snatched another macaroon. “Not to mention the collisions,” he started counting off, helping himself with half of the sweet treat in his fingers, “the traffic jams, the diversions, delays, even blockades it causes!” he ate the rest of his pointer and reached for another one. “You ever see how Aurora flows merrily one way and then suddenly veers off in the opposite direction? It’ll be because some wanker bet on the wrong horse or felt lonely or some such!”

“And ah,” Fili nibbled on one rounded edge of his macaroon, “when did you say they shot you down?”

Kili chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe ten hours before the supernova thing. Why? You think they could be on the run?”

“Mmmm,” Fili commented noncommittally.

“It doesn’t matter! It’s like a homing instinct. Like a pigeon. They can run, but they can’t hide!”

“Mmmm,” Fili hummed once again, in what he hoped sounded like a supportive manner.

“You got any more of those?” Kili was staring at the empty plate in Fili’s lap.

“And your homing instinct…?”

“Is the spinning thing ready to give me back my clothes yet?”

“…I think I have some gingerbreads among the groceries.”

\---

It turned out that for all the ruffled feathers, Fili’s star was an affectionate one.

He felt cold, but kept warming up, accidentally almost, from how much he seemed to be programmed to crave touch. Fili didn’t see any point in denying him – he could do with some human (well okay, _celestial_ ) contact himself and anyway, where else would he get the opportunity to deploy all his tacky signature moves and get away with them?

A yawn, a stretch and an arm slung casually around Kili’s shoulders.

A slow brush of a thumb as he gently wiped some maybe-wasn’t-even-there particle of food from the corner of Kili’s lips.

“Would you just get that for me? Right there, top shelf,” and a shameless glance at Kili’s shapely ass.

More accidental hand brushes than he’d managed in the past decade.

Fili saw his chance and he took it; Kili didn’t seem to mind any of it.

And then every now and again Kili would realise that he was starting to run a little hot and try to radiate it all out by means of pinching the front of his t-shirt and fanning himself with it, giving Fili tantalising little glimpses of the dark, dark treasure trail that ran all the way down his chest, in a morse code for ‘hey, wouldn’t it be fun to map _that_ out?’

… And making him completely lose the plot of whatever they were watching.

There had been several games of Cluedo, then Monopoly, abandoned half-way through because Kili didn’t seem to be entirely on board with the concept of money, never mind real estate development, and finally the good old Connect 4.

Then there was supper: pizza for Fili and a whole tub of peanut butter ice cream for Kili –

Until finally they settled down to watch some ‘end-of-the-world-catastrophe-type’ film, during which Kili declared: “I’ve already seen that, several times. Is this a re-run?” which fired off a plethora of questions in Fili’s mind.

Meanwhile, Kili’s clothes were taking their sweet, sweet time drying, which in Lapland’s winter conditions was going to take approximately until June, and if Fili owned a tumble-drier, nobody needed to know.

\---

Kili was at war with himself.

Yes, he needed to go, but he wasn’t entirely sure where he could find more mortals, and he liked this one _particular_ mortal better than any of the others he’d met.

It had absolutely nothing to do with being worried about facing another one of those astral searchlights sprug out of some bushes all on his own.

“What’s it like being a star?” came an adorably sleepy, perhaps even wistful, question.

It was now well past 3 a.m. in the morning and there was absolutely nothing worth watching on the TV. Kili was just coming into the height of his powers, but his human seemed… wilted somehow. Not as perky as before.

Kili even allowed himself a feint little glow, just to take the edge off, and prevent Fili from trying to switch on that infernal fake, yellow light he had lurking all over his house.

He considered for a moment. “It’s… it’s beautiful. Imagine an endless expanse of glimmering light. The path laid out right before you and fit _only_ for you. Outside of it: only darkness and majestic, eternal silence. It’s… sublime.”

“Sounds lonely,” his human murmured, sliding down further to the right – something he’d been doing for close to half an hour now. “Never meeting anyone…” he pondered this for a moment and that annoying frown was right there between his eyebrows again.

Kili repressed the urge to smooth it out.

“… Unless on special occasions,” and then something occurred to him and Fili looked at him with sudden alarm. “I’m not about to become some sort of bizarre victim of immaculate conception, am I?!”

Kili looked at him oddly. “Not that I’m aware of.”

\---

Fili was woken up by wriggling on top of him.

Kili seemed to be doing some sort of tricky performance art, possibly tantric in nature, which would somehow enable him to stay in touch with Fili’s body, but… without actually touching it with any part of his own person.

It didn’t seem to be working, except once or twice Kili nearly fell off the sofa.

Fili helpfully allowed himself to be maneuvered this way and that – surreptitiously checking his watch in the process, which told him that they must have slept the rest of the night and the whole day away – only to return to the original ‘slouched sideways’ position from which they started.

Kili sighed and flopped back on top of him with resignation.

Fili sent him an amused smile. He carefully wrapped one arm around his shoulders to anchor him in place in case there was more wriggling forthcoming.

Kili yawned into his collar bone. “You are a good human,” he muttered a’propos of nothing.

Fili tried to peer down at him from too-up-close. “I don’t know about that.”

“No, you _are_ ,” his star insisted, scrambling up higher, which had the general effect of coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Fili’s bearded jaw.

Dark eyes appeared above him and peered into his own for a long moment.

And then Kili leaned down and kissed him.

It wasn’t rushed, or hurried, or chase, or awkward, or hesitant, or any of those things that first kisses were supposed to be.

It was… deliberate, premeditated, slow and gradually deepening; it was exactly what Kili wanted it to be and what Fili readily accepted.

Fili didn’t tend to spend some inordinate amounts of time pondering love, but he knew one when it stepped out in front of his hood.

And he knew what that meant.

“Kili,” he whispered, when they separated, watching the room get a little brighter along with the pleased smile on Kili’s face. “I think it was _my_ wish –“

“What?!” Kili sat up abruptly.

“- that shot you down.”

“ _You!_ ”

Fili grabbed the nearest cushion and ducked behind it, fully expecting to find himself on the sharp end of one of Kili’s magical weapons. “It was late and I had a couple of beers! I saw a star zoom past the horizon and I just thought – It’s a _tradition_!”

“Cancel it!” Kili demanded, scrambling back up to his feet.

“Done!” A fraction too fast, as Fili imagined putting a big red ‘X’ over the word ‘wish’ in his head.

Kili did a little hop, but found himself still a subject to the cruel mistress called gravity and fell, most assuredly, back to the carpet. He gave Fili a pointed look.

“Sorry. Just – give me a moment.”

Kili turned on his heel and marched himself out of the house.

“Cancel it,” he ordered once again, standing in Fili’s backyard up to his knees in the snow, and looking at him with quiet betrayal.

Fili looked away and he… did. He just let his star go. It wasn’t right to keep him, when he had no choice in the matter. He focused and tried to concentrate on accepting and embracing all that it meant that his wish was going to go unfulfilled.

It looked as if Kili was being abducted by aliens. A shaft of light beamed down from the skies and Kili started ascending, floating gently up, out of the snow and ever higher.

“Will I ever see you again?” Fili asked quietly.

“Of course,” Kili rolled his eyes. “You’ll be able to see me all the time! I’ll be right up there!” he pointed upwards.

“Oh. And I’ll be right… down…”

“… Here,” they both whispered at the same time.

It seemed to go a bit quicker now, as if Kili was picking up speed. He was almost at a roof level by now.

Fili turned to leave.

“Fili?”

“Yes?”

“What was your wish?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Fili shook his head. “It was the same mundane kind of nonsense that you’ve heard a thousand times. Don’t worry about it, Sparklepants.”

Kili wriggled, which had the effect of him sliding along the edges of something invisible, like a giant bubble, which he then rolled in awkwardly, trying to get closer to Fili’s house.

“ _Tell me_!” he ordered, managing to grab hold of the corner tile of Fili’s roofing and cling to it. Kili’s body continued to be lifted upwards, but his hands remained stubbornly anchored.

For a moment it looked as if Kili was going to ascend and take Fili’s roof alongside with him.

Fili panicked. “I just didn’t want to be alone anymore! It gets pretty lonely out here, especially in the winter. It was a stupid notion, I know.”

“Oh.” Kili let go and his bubble bounced back to its original trajectory.

Fili sent him a sad little smile and a wave. “Safe travels, Twinkleberry!”

He closed the door behind him, resolutely determined _not_ to think about his personal ray of happines, which was floating away just now to join its shimmering brethren.

He was going to pick up a new hobby! Or several. Knife-cutouts. Knitting. Bread-making. There were kits for all sorts of things available online these days, he could order a bunch, see what took his fancy. There was no time to waste, he had lists to make, research to do -

There was hell of a bang, followed by a loud clatter outside.

Fili froze mid-step.

“Kili?!” he shot out of the house.

His chicken hut had been, well, it had been demolished. The chickens themselves were hastily evacuating the premises in a flury of wings and straw, even as the last of the vertical planks that used to make up the walls fell over into the snow.

“Uuuuugh,” came a low groan from right in the middle of all that destruction. “Fucking terrific.”

“Kili!!” Fili flung himself through the snow and terrified poultry towards his star.

Somehow, miraculously, apart from being covered in straw, crushed eggs and bits of wood, Kili appeared to be unharmed. He even pulled out one of Fili’s flock from where it was trapped under the planks and set it free among less than graceful flapping of wings right in his face.

“Hmmm…” he picked up one of the relatively unbroken boards and tried to set it up vertically, back where the wall used to be.

They both watched, as it slowly tilted and flopped down into the snow with a soft crunch.

“Hmmm.”

“Kili.” Fili sat down heavily half-way up the pile of rubble.

Kili threw him a measured glance. “M’ fine. We, stars, are made of sturdier stuff than you.” He picked up another two bits of wood and tried to match them together along the splinter line. “Up there there are greater things to withstand: gravitational pulls, solar flares, meteors –“

“Kili.” Fili crossed his arms on his chest and proceeded to shiver, which slightly spoiled the look of gravitas he was going for.

“I changed my mind,” Kili finally looked him straight in the eye and stopped fiddling. “I’m going to grant your wish, mortal.”

“Why?” Fili tilted his head with a confused frown.

“Because I can and because I want to!” Kili tried to get back to his feet and wobbled dangerously on top of an uneven footing. “And because I was right: you _are_ a good human.”

Something below creaked dangerously and shattered. Kili flailed and fell forwards, right into Fili’s arms.

“But mostly, just because _I want to_.”

Their second kiss wasn’t apologetic, or tentative, or full of longing, or bitter-sweet, or even particularly steady.

It was not-so-secretly pleased and passionate and full of teeth, because Fili just _could not_ stop shivering.

\---

_3 weeks later._

Fili stood on top of his porch and eyed the vision before him.

There was a reindeer in his backyard.

That, in its own right, could have been accounted for – this _was_ Lapland after all. Reindeer roamed free and sometimes they chose to roam in people’s gardens.

But this particular reindeer appeared all by itself, complete with an entire sleigh, fit for several people, and an expert harness adorned with a series of little bells. It was the bells that lured Fili outside in the first place.

But most importantly, it was giving Fili a very familiar-looking side-glower as it dug at the snow with one hoof and let out an impatient snort of steam.

“Kili, you have a guest!” Fili called.

It was generally safe to assume that everything strange and unusual in Fili’s life these days was somehow connected to Kili.

It usually was.

Fili learned to be surprised a great deal less than before.

Kili, his love and joy, who just now was no doubt kicking his ass on the Xbox, _unsupervised_ for any damage limitation.

“Glittercheeks!!” Fili shouted louder.

The reindeer eyed him, judgingly.

Fili eyed the reindeer and wondered if he was looking at a valid business opportunity.

Finally, heavy footsteps thundered through the house, until a wild Kili appeared.

“Felix?! Oh my God, Felix!! Where have _you_ been?! I was expecting you days ago!”

“You were?” Fili arched an eyebrow.

The reindeer took several steps forward and looked decidedly happier.

“Of course! Felix is my steed. He and I are one!” Fili tried to arch his eyebrow higher, but Kili wasn’t paying any attention, looking the animal over instead. “Something’s changed,” he stopped abruptly and frowned. He looked at the creature this way and that. “Did you braid your mane? Done something with your tail?”

“He’s a reindeer,” Fili pointed out helpfully. “The antlers, they’re a dead give-away,” he even raised both his hands to either side of his head and wriggled his fingers to illustrate.

“Yes, I thought those were odd,” Kili ran his fingers gently over the protrusions, but continued to frown.

“You said you used to have a _pony_?” Fili tried again. “Describe him to me.”

“Black, about thirteen hands high, huge feathery wings, magnificent mane, bushy tail, a bit of an attitude, but we got on well enough, didn’t we?” Kili cooed at the reindeer, which let out another unimpressed snort right in his face.

“Well, the attitude’s still there,” Fili dead-panned and started wondering what reindeer ate and where one might be housed.

\---


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this is a sequel (or an in-between-quel) to [this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21792550/chapters/52283560) from 2019, which should be read first.

There was a limo coming down the narrow lane leading up to Fili’s house.

Fili squinted at it uncertainly, then surveyed the skies. Nothing. No helicopters.

He ventured outside.

If this was some elaborate ploy designed by the Norwegian Royal Security Forces to storm his house, the joke was on them: Fili’s driveway was designed for plucky 4x4s, not a motoring equivalent of a sausage dog.

Besides, Kili wasn’t even here yet – they were early.

Fili narrowed his eyes and and watched as the limo took an awkward 24-point turn, in order to place itself in a position deemed suitable for the occupant to get out.

Then the door swung open and a rumpled, but relieved-looking Kili peered outside.

“Feeling high and mighty today, are we?” Fili jogged up to him, but promptly shut up.

Kili’s leg was in a cast.

In an entirely unauthorised emotional response, Fili’s protective instincts flared up. His mind raced, simultaneously accusing him of _not being there_ when it happened, trying to identify any and all sources of Kili’s discomfort, and spoiling for a fight. With what or who, Fili had no idea.

 _Down,_ Fili sternly told himself and reached inside to retrieve his boyfriend.

“I thought this drive would never end! God, I’ve missed you, Fee!” Kili practically wrapped himself around him, tucking his chin into the crook of Fili’s neck and pressing needy little kisses there, but it wasn’t lost on Fili just how much of his weight was being transferred onto him.

“I’ve missed you too,” Fili awkwardly kissed one ear available to him. “Did you think to bring a pair of crutches when you were running away?”

“No.”

“Right.” Fili slung one of Kili’s arms around his shoulders and helped stabilise him with an arm of his own wrapped around his waist.

“What happened?” he demanded of Nori – Kili’s personal chauffeur – who was just running up to them with an open umbrella.

“You’ll have to ask him,” Nori sent Kili an amused look. “He wouldn’t tell me. All I know is that I was summoned to the back door of a hospital, and then he rocked up in a wheelchair, climbed inside and ordered me to floor it until there was tyre spin. Do you _know_ how hard it is to make the tyres spin in a _Bentley_?!” He rushed up ahead to open the door for them.

Fili didn’t know and he had little interest in finding out. All he knew was that he had a very tense and suspiciously quiet Kili hanging off his shoulder. For no readily apparent reason, Fili’s mind brought up images of little chicks fallen out of nests, injured squirrels and limping deer foals. The insanity was clearly setting in again, as it had a habit of doing around Kili.

For the second time in less than five minutes Fili told himself to get a grip and headed for the easiest-to-nest-in space in his home: the sofa.

* * *

“Got any painkillers?” Kili sent him a sheepish grin once they were left alone once more. “I legged it just as they left to get me some and the local wore off about an hour out of Oslo.

Fili felt the corner of his lips quirk up at the mention of ‘legging it’, but dutifully padded over to retrieve a bottle of ibuprofen.

“Much easier running away from the hospital, by the way,” Kili continued conversationally, collecting as many pillows as he could reach, “barely any security. Amateurs.”

Fili passed him the pills along with his own half-finished tea.

Kili took two and pulled a face at the drink, but didn’t give it back.

“Well?” Fili prompted.

“I was betrayed,” Kili announced with dignity and dramatism only he was capable of.

“By whom?”

“By… a ledge. Or the ice it was covered in, to be precise.”

Fili frowned. There weren’t many icy ledges that featured in his life and he suspected Kili’s life was even more ledge-free.

He narrowed his eyes. “Was the said ledge on the outside of some fancy building? Maybe some distance off the ground?”

Kili must have found some glaring errors with the way the edge of his cast had been secured with a bandage and tried to rectify them straight away by poking at the irregular edge. “Possibly.”

“And what were you doing on this ledge?” Fili crossed his arms on his chest.

“Trying to get to the guttering, _obviously_!” Kili huffed, but it was more resigned than annoyed.

“And why was the guttering relevant to your interests?”

“It’s the only way to turn a corner. I thought there was a window open in the West Wing.”

Fili sighed. “Kili…” he murmured and moved to sit down next to him. He had every intention of telling his Princeling off, but said Princeling was just then going from resigned, to tired, to downright miserable-looking, and Fili too found himself betrayed. By his own words.

Kili inched closer and let his head rest on top of Fili’s shoulder with a low sigh. “There were rose bushes below,” he whispered, as if it was some terrible secret.

If Fili had been there at the time, watching the idiot climb out of the window, slip, flail, and flop right into a bed of rose bushes, he would have laughed.

Seconds later he’d remember that the idiot was His Idiot, panic, and race towards the rose beds to see if he was okay.

But Fili hadn’t been there, and what he was getting now was defeat and quiet vulnerability, neither of which was bearable, when it came to Kili. They were practically a contradiction of the man he called his own.

So instead Fili kissed the top of his head and carefully wrapped an arm around Kili’s shoulders, offering comfort and and a steady weight to lean on.

“Could be worse,” he murmured seriously. “At least you’re in power by default. Imagine if you were running for the presidency!”

Somehow, Kili didn’t find it particularly funny.

* * *

It was technically their third Christmas together, counting from the one when the pixie first gatecrashed Fili’s home, life and heart.

Since then, he had summarily taken possession of all three.

There was something about Kili that allowed him to make the spaces his own; spaces and _people_.

Perhaps it was his authenticity: Kili always gave his all, getting terribly invested and infusing every interaction with his own, personal brand of Kiliness.

At least around Fili.

How he reconciled that with his responsibilities as a Royal, Fili had no idea; ‘keeping up the appearances’ was practically his job description.

Every now and again Fili switched on the news and watched some story on some Momentous Occasion in order to compare and contrast. It was hard to believe that the Heir to the Throne and, incidentally, the Most Eligible Bachelor in the Land was the same guy who danced in his socks in Fili’s kitchen singing Bon Jovi into a parsnip, regularly talked to Fili’s coffee machine in the mornings and almost hyperventilated once, having met a hedgehog.

It wouldn’t be true to say that Fili’s heart had been fully healed of all its fears and doubts; he spent many a night lying in bed, wondering what a guy like Kili might want from him. He still wasn’t a fan of people. Above all, he refused to let himself be used again.

But sooner or later Kili always appeared back in his life with all his Need To Be Loved and Fili’s own Need To Love responded, as if spellbound. Whatever it was in Fili that made him afraid, around Kili found its courage and became brave.

And really, wasn’t that the very essence of love?

* * *

The only thing worse than having Kili decorate his house turned out to be decorating his house _himself_ , under the strict instructions from the King of the Sofa.

Kili was well and truly _settled_. He had his foot propped up on top of several pillows, a blanket (“Not that one, Fili, the teddy bear one, with the little tassels! I am _wounded_ , what are you trying to pull?!”), a bag of frozen peas over his cast (“No, I can _definitely_ feel it, even through the plaster!”), a hot water bottle propped up against the sole of his foot (“My toes are cold now…”) and a mug of hot cocoa, because although Fili really should have known better, he just _wasn’t that strong_.

He looked like he _belonged_. More so, than anyone else who had ever sat on that sofa, Fili himself included.

“A bit to the right, you’re slightly off-centre.”

Fili obediently climbed down the ladder, moved it a foot to the right and climbed back up again. “Here?”

“A bit to the left? Perfect!”

Fili fixed a string of fairy lights to one of the wood beams of his home. He grabbed his coffee and paused in front of the kitchen island, blocking it from view as he opened the cupboard, grabbed his whiskey and topped up his drink.

“What next?” he asked, taking a satisfying sip.

“I thought the garlands could go along the staircase railings.”

“We don’t even spend the time in that part of the house,” Fili protested.

“It will look nice when we’re going up to bed.”

Fili sighed and reached for the plastic greenery. It had arrived last year, with no explanation whatsoever, along with an alarming amount of other Christmas tat, just before Kili.

It barely fitted in the loft.

Thankfully, since then, one or two particularly, ah, _unforgettable_ pieces were _mistaken_ for the fire wood and tossed into the wood burner, freeing up some space.

He fixed the garland in place with some zip-ties, arranging it artfully winding this way and that. It _looked_ a bit like wood; he was fairly certain it would get mistaken for one before next year.

He didn’t have anything against Christmas decorations _per se_ , so long as they came in quantities that a single person could reasonably need. Looking at how much _they_ had, they could be here until Easter.

“Now the lights,” Kili pointed to the ones he wanted.

“The cable won’t reach,” Fili parked by the kitchen island again and procured some more Liquid Patience. “There aren’t any sockets down there.”

“That’s okay, we have the battery-powered ones, remember? I think they’re just over there.”

Fili took another sip. His zen descended upon him once more.

He fixed the lights in place, taking mental notes to check all his fire wood for batteries before tossing it in.

“Now for the main thing: the Christmas tree!” Kili perked up. “Let’s see what kinds of baubles we’ve got.”

Fili eyed the contents of his mug contemplatively and decided that he was going to need more coffee in his whiskey, if he wanted to be awake by the time that tree was finished.

* * *

“Mulled wine?” Fili held out a glass.

On the Venn diagram of the things Fili enjoyed (comfort, alcohol, hot drinks, interesting spices) and the things Kili loved (Christmas, sugar, deliciousness, food prepared by Fili), the mulled wine conveniently sat right in the middle. Which was why Fili had pre-prepared a batch, as his single, solitary nod towards Christmas traditions.

Nothing at all to do with Kili’s delighted -

“Yes, please!” Kili looked delighted.

“Actually, you’re medicated,” Fili realised, snatching the cup away from the reaching hand.

“Clearly, not enough,” Kili licked his lips. “Besides, most of the alcohol would have evaporated by now.”

Fili considered. “Are you actually old enough to be drinking this?”

“I’m twenty-six, I’ll have you know!” Kili put all of his eyebrows into the expression of pure outrage.

“Hm.” Fili finally conceded and let him have his drink, trying to calculate if it was more likely to make his Princeling dozy, or hyperactive and prone to further injuries. It was, after all, almost midnight by now.

He wasn’t at all sure he got that calculation right.

Then he pulled out his phone, settling down on the other end of the sofa.

“Are you googling me?!”

“No.” Fili denied, doing just that.

“You totally _are_ , and it’s very rude. I liked you better being oblivious.”

Fili ignored him and tapped the Wikipedia entry. Kili was telling the truth. Fili looked up at him. He looked much younger than he was – Fili would give him no more than twenty-two.

“It’s the hair,” Kili murmured somewhat quieter than his usual volume and tugged self-consciously at the end of a low pony tail he was wearing today. “The one expression of my rebellious streak,” he announced dramatically.

“Just the one?” Fili arched his eyebrow.

A slow, deadly smile blossomed on a handsome face. “The rest is just bad influence from others.”

“Bad influence, hm?” Fili put aside his own glass and slowly climbed over his boyfriend, as if summoned by the mischief in those dark eyes.

And then he kissed His Royal Highness, Prince Killian Johan Haakon Durin, Lord of Many Places, Knight Grand of Some Military Honours, First in Line to the Throne of Norway, hard and deep and sensual, like one probably wasn’t supposed to kiss HRH’s.

Clearly, his own mischievous streak was responding to Kili’s. There was nothing for it.

(Sometimes, just _sometimes_ , when they were in bed and Fili felt like being a little shit, he made a point of moaning out Kili’s full name in the thores of his passion. This typically resulted in a low growl and a firm ‘thunk’ of Kili’s forehead meeting whatever part of Fili happened to be below him, followed by Kili giving it to him _harder_ , concluding perhaps that Fili was entirely too coherent for his own good. It worked like a charm every single time.)

“Very, _very_ bad,” Kili agreed, only his eyes were sparkling with utter delight. “In fact, I think you should take me upstairs and do your absolute worst now.”

“I thought you were ‘wounded’?” Fili snorted. “How about we stay right here, I do my ‘moderately malicious’ instead, and we see where this goes?” he negotiated.

Kili stretched both his hands above his head and wriggled to get more comfortable in his spot. “We can try, but I’m pretty sure I know exactly where this will go: upstairs. Where the lube lives.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later Fili shook him gently. “C'mon, Princess. Let’s get you to bed.”

“No,” came a short answer, muttered into one of the pillows.

“The bed is wider; less chance of you falling off and breaking something else,” Fili tried to reason. “Plus, it’s about to have me in it.”

Kili blinked up at him sleepily. Combination of the day’s mis-adventures and excitements, painkillers and those few sips of alcohol tripped his consciousness before Fili could get past some barely malevolent necking.

It didn’t appear to bother him overly much.

"Carry me." Arms reached out from the sofa.

Fili heaved a long-suffering sigh. “If I must.”

He reached down to carefully collect his injured boyfriend, and lift him, bridal-style, towards the stairs.

That seemed to please Kili, if the way he tried to curl up against his chest and tuck his face into the crook of Fili’s neck was any indication.

Something familiar and warm blossomed under Fili’s ribs. Most curiously, it seemed to go some way towards satisfying Fili’s protective urges, which were still rebelling in the back of his mind.

These days, Fili’s emotional landscape was truly a Wild Wild West land; Kili was its biggest outlaw, and he was clearly flirting with the sheriff.

* * *

  
Fili descended his stairs in the morning to find Dwalin sitting on his sofa with a cup of coffee, playing on his phone. Two other security agents have taken over his kitchen and one of them was making scrambled eggs.

“Dwalin,” he acknowledged the bald Scotsman.

“Blondie,” Dwalin acknowledged him.

Fili zeroed in on his French press and poured a cup for himself.

The bodyguard didn’t look up from his screen. “Is he awake?”

“Relatively.”

Dwalin tried to storm Fili’s bedroom only once; he’s been living with his regrets ever since.

“We’re leaving in an hour.”

“Good. I didn’t invite you.” Fili charitably tried to rescue the scrambled eggs woefully lacking in chives, ham or even onion, by sprinkling some dried tomatoes with garlic over the pan. The guy mixed it in.

“You know full well what I mean. Fetch the Princeling.”

Fili, who generally responded badly to being told what to do, reached for the oregano and calmly, but firmly took over the pan.

“Tell me again, how did you end up being the Head of Security for the Crown Prince of Norway?” he asked conversationally, adding a knob of butter and hoping it would melt in the still-hot pan.

“Because I’m the best in the industry,” Dwalin replied with a hint of pride.

Fili grabbed two shallow bowls and dished out the eggs, leaving about three spoonfuls in the pan. He considered for a moment, then added a handful of grated cheddar to each, hoping it would hide a multitude of sins. He poured another coffee, assaulted it with sugar, milk and cream and arranged everything on a tray.

“And where were you when he fell down from the second floor of the Skaugum Palace, narrowly avoiding breaking his neck?” he threw, heading back towards the stairs.

“I had men stationed outside his door and in the two rooms adjacent to the Royal Apartments!”

“That would be why he chose the window then.”

“ _You_ try guarding him! He’s impossible!”

Fili stopped on the landing. “I do; I just don’t do it in a way that would make him feel the need to run away from me.”

* * *

The Christmas dinner with the Royal Family had been Kili’s mother’s idea.

There was only so much gossip about her son that she was prepared to tolerate from third party sources.

Fili had been Summoned.

He had tried to wriggle his way out of it, of course he did – he was generally rather good at avoiding doing the things he didn’t want to do. He even succeeded… the first year round.

The second year round it arrived on official stationery and sounded more like an order than an optional event: “HRH Princess Diis of Some Important Place requests the pleasure of your company… and so on and so forth.”

They even enclosed an etiquette guide.

Fili left it dutifully on his bedside table. The problem was, there was always something more interesting to read that tickled his fancy; he’d gone through four books that way.

Eventually he picked up the leaflet – whole 16 pages of it – in the early morning hours of the Christmas Day, with his own HRH snoring softly in his bed, having claimed one of Fili’s thighs firmly in the name of the Kingdom of Kililand.

Fili scanned through the first three pages and declared himself ready; he wasn’t planning on staying long anyway.

At least they were allowed to have the Christmas Eve together; there was only so much gossip about himself that Kili was prepared to tolerate while he was present.

* * *

"Carry me," Kili demanded once again. "I'm _hurt_ ," he added plaintively for good measure.

Fili rolled his eyes, but obeyed. Somehow, the fireman carry didn't seem quite as agreeable as carrying Kili bridal-style was.

"You can't! I'm a Prince!" Kili squeaked from somewhere in the general vicinity of Fili's ass.

"I think you'll find -"

Fili didn't get to explain what Kili would find, because Kili grabbed at said ass and squeezed. They both nearly tumbled down the stairs.

Eventually, after some fierce negotiations, rationalised on both sides by a number of mouth-to-mouth type arguments, they settled on a piggyback.

To Dwalin, waiting by the chopper outside, this came as a surprise. “I brought the crutches,” he offered, shouting over the whir of the chopper’s rotors.

Kili only stuck out his tongue at him by the way of response, almost licking Fili’s ear in the process.

He was mature like that.

They got in and settled down, carefully padding Kili’s leg with several borrowed pillows and the teddy bear blankie, which was now apparently more Kili’s than Fili’s anyway.

As his home and the Sanctuary got smaller and smaller below them, Fili couldn’t shake the feeling that even if he was due to return the following morning, nothing was ever going to be the same again. He wondered, not for the first time, who was abducting whom, as the helicopter carried him well and truly outside of his natural habitat and into the ‘enemy territory’, as Kili would have put it.

“It’ll be okay,” he heard in his headphones, as Kili squeezed his hand reassuringly. “Just remember that I love you; they have to respect that. Besides, it’s Christmas – people are not allowed to be anything other than nice to each other,” he beamed, as if revealing some elaborate strategy he had devised.

Fili only rolled his eyes, sending him a return squeeze. Lots of people all across the country were likely using the Christmas dinner to meet the family of their loved ones for the first time; Kili’s family just happened to rule that country.

If it all fell through, he thought, Fili could always turn republican.

* * *

They had been seated almost diagonally apart from each other across the vast expanse of the banquet table.

Kili, as the Heir, was near the top, flanked by his mother and some elderly matron; Fili, presumably as the peasant of the group, was put between some distant cousins, aunts and nieces.

It ruined somewhat Fili’s most scandalous plans for a game of footsy.

The furtive glances from Kili were coming in turns: apologetic, full of longing and just plain old SOS messages, increasing in volume as the meal progressed. Had he been free to do as he pleased, Kili would have scurried over by now, perched in his lap and started stealing bits of meat from his plate when Fili wasn’t looking.

It occurred to Fili that just as much as he had no idea what would happen when he entered Kili’s ‘official’ world, neither did the Royal Family.

Or Kili himself.

“I hear you’re a friend of our young Prince. What do you do for a living?” came a question from some 5 seats above Fili in the pecking order. It was an improvement on the previous state of affairs: most of the guests wanted to talk _about_ him, but not _to_ him.

“I’m a caretaker of a small portion of land,” Fili replied truthfully.

“So are we!” somebody observed, causing several low chuckles.

“Must have met in the course of His Royal Highness’s charity work, I expect.” Two seats further to the right. “Africa, perhaps?”

“Actually –“ Kili, who must have been keeping an ear out, tried to interject, but was drowned out by another excited murmur.

“Oh, but he doesn’t have the accent!” Three seats down, on Fili’s side.

“There’s no reason a Norwegian couldn’t make a career on the continent.” Prime minister’s wife, almost within the Royal orbit.

“I think it’s marvelous that our Prince is so in touch with his people. It will serve him well in the future.”

It was a shame they didn’t know just _how_ ‘in touch with his people’ Kili had been that very morning, Fili thought, taking a sip of his wine.

“And have you any future plans together?” this from King Thorin himself now, as he waited for his next course to be served. “The hunting season is almost upon us. Perhaps he could come up with us to the Lodge?”

The murmur of conversation started dying down a little as people not-so-secretly waited to see how the situation would develop.

“You mean perhaps you could finally get Kili to come, if his friend was invited,” Princess Diis amended with a cunning smile.

Kili sent him another, clearly distressed look, which said, ‘whatever you do, don’t start’.

Fili started. He practically owed it to the animals yet to be shot.

“I don’t know about Kili, but _my_ future plans involve spending the rest my life with him,” he said, loud and clear.

Kili choked on his côte de boeuf.

The room fell utterly silent.

King Thorin froze with a slice of a pear-thyme brined, roasted turkey dripping its gravy onto the very edge of his plate.

Fili watched him with riveting fascination.

“What an idea!” King Thorin finally choked out around a nervous laughter. “I’m sure your _friendship_ will last for many years to come, but I rather meant –“

Fili narrowed his eyes and rose from his seat.

Kili’s uncle paled somewhat. "This has not been agreed!"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." Fili's eyes met Kili's (very wide, very brown) across the table. He calmly started on his journey around the room, rummaging in his pocket for what he needed.

He’s had the ring for over a year now, carried it on him at all times in fact, but the moment just never seemed right.

Deep in his heart, Fili knew for a while that his life was going to have to take another sharp turn as he somehow found a way to be with Kili. He belonged with his Princeling; he just made a concerted effort of not-thinking-about-it.

He didn’t resist the pull now; he thought back to the dark-haired freeloader in a hand-knitted scarf, who invaded his life with warmth, kindness, a sense of purpose and a genuine, unconditional affection.

He needed to call dibs on all of that, before _this world_ could stake a claim of its own.

"No! I will never allow this!"

"Good thing I’m not trying to marry you, your Majesty. I believe, under the circumstances, your consent is optional.”

King Thorin looked scandalised.

“Your Royal Highness,” Fili corrected himself.

Somewhere behind him, Princess Diis broke the silence with what could only be described as a guffaw of delighted laughter.

“I'm trying to marry _him_ ," Fili clarified. "If he'll have me," he added quietly, stopping in front of a stunned-looking Kili.

He sank to one knee. "Will you? Have me, that is?"

For a second every single breath in the room had been held. And then Kili made a decidedly un-princely noise somewhere between a snort and a giggle, flung his arms and the rest of his person at Fili and said: "Hell yes!"

Fili caught him, but overbalanced, unprepared for the sudden outburst of sheer glee being kissed uncompromisingly into him. At least the plush, royal carpets cushioned them nicely. Rolling about on the floor was probably also against the etiquette, but Fili was too busy trying to hold on to his –

"Kili. Kili, the ring!"

"Hm?" Came distractedly in between the kisses, and was snogging allowed in the presence of a monarch? Fili couldn't remember the damn leaflet.

"Under the chair. I think it landed -"

Kili grabbed it and put it on himself. And then he sat up, carefully minding his leg, on top of a thoroughly flattened and mauled Fili and glared at the room at large, like only Kili could.

"I am marrying this man," he announced, "and if anybody has anything to say about this, _just you try_!"

* * *

Deep in the staff offices of the North Wing of the Skaugum Palace, Dwalin watched the whole scene play out on the flat screen of his CCTV system.

“Well, that’s just jammy,” he muttered tiredly. “There’ll be two o’ them twinkleberries now.”


End file.
